1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the structure of a carrier, which does not have a lower frame, and has sufficient rigidity maintained through the center frames slantingly extended from the center of an upper frame to side frames, thereby having light weight and enabling the maintenance of sufficient rigidity.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a vehicle body forms the external appearance of a vehicle, and comprises a vehicle chamber, an engine room, a trunk, a fender, etc. The above vehicle body is divided into a front body, a central body, and a rear body in a longitudinal direction of the vehicle.
A carrier for assembling head lamps, a radiator, a condenser, and a bumper is installed on the front body.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a conventional carrier for vehicles.
As shown in FIG. 1, a Front End Module (FEM) technique, which assembles head lamps, a radiator, a condenser, and a bumper with a vehicle body panel into one unit so as to improve assembly efficiency in manufacturing, reduces the number of components to be assembled, so as to shorten the time taken to assemble the carrier, and assures an assembling degree of the carrier, is applied to the carrier.
That is, the carrier 10 is generally divided into head lamp mounting portions 11 for mounting head lamps thereon, and a cooling module mounting portion 12 for mounting a cooling module thereon, such as a radiator and a condenser, on the front surface thereof.
The cooling module mounting portion 12 comprises an upper frame 13, a center frame 14 extended downwardly from the central portion of the upper frame 13 for mounting a horn speaker of the vehicle thereon, a lower frame 15 formed at the lower portion of the cooling module mounting portion 12 for mounting a bumper and a fog light thereon, and side frames 16, each of which has one end connected to the corresponding one of both ends of the lower frame 15 and the other end connected to the corresponding one of both ends of the upper frame 13.
The cooling module is fixedly connected to the lower frame 15 of the carrier 10. More specifically, a pair of connection plates 17 protrudes from the lower frame 15, and connection holes 18, into which protrusions of the cooling module are inserted, are respectively formed through the connection plates 17.
The head lamp mounting portions 11 are formed at both sides of the upper frame 13. One end of each of the head lamp mounting portions 11 is connected to the upper frame 13, and the other end of each of the head lamp mounting portions 11 is connected to the corresponding one of the side frames 16.
A hydride-type carrier, which is made of steel and plastic by molding, has recently been employed.
The weight of the carrier is generally 4.5˜5.5 kg. The carrier has a considerably heavy weight, thus lowering fuel consumption efficiency of the vehicle.
Further, since many raw materials are required to manufacture the carrier, when the costs of the raw materials are increased, the carrier has high production costs, thus causing a burden in the manufacture of the carrier.